Oppenheimer has just received another trailer, with Universal Pictures doubling down on the July release window amid concerns of an ugly clash with another potential box office topper, Barbie.
Christopher Nolan’s long-anticipated next flick — depicting the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb — is coming out on July 21, and this latest trailer reveals that much like Dunkirk, we’re in for another anxiety-inducing, tension-filled biopic set in the World War II period.
Cillian Murphy stars as physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer, the man who invented the deadliest bomb in human history as a deterrent against the Nazi onslaught. The movie is meant to serve as a character study about Oppenheimer and the conflict that arises within him as a result of this catastrophic invention, while taking inspiration from the 2005 book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
Oppenheimer features a large cast that seems to have racked up the entirety of Hollywood, including Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, Casey Affleck, James Remar, Josh Hartnett, and Alden Ehrenreich. Matthew Modine, Jack Quaid, Scott Grimes, and Gary Oldman also appear in the film, alongside a dozen more thespians in unspecified roles.
According to Indiewire, the budget for this big picture is $100 million, which is on the lower side for a director like Nolan. To put it into perspective, the budget for The Dark Knight was an estimated $180 million and Interstellar was $165 million. One shouldn’t see this as a measure of Oppenheimer‘s visual quality, however, as Nolan is still implementing practical effects — such as numerous custom-built sets — to pull off spectacular moments without an over-reliance on VFX.
As for its commercial prospects, the movie’s biggest competition is Greta Gerwig’s Barbie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, which premieres on the same day, so it’ll be interesting to see how these films, so different in tone and nature, will compete for the box office crown come July 21.